The financial industry created derivative securities (or derivatives) as a way to reallocate risk, create leverage, and provide a wider range of investment opportunities for its clients. These are securities whose prices are determined by, or “derive from,” the prices of other securities. Popular examples of derivative securities include options and futures contracts. Standardized forms of these derivatives now regularly trade on various national and international exchanges. Because the value of derivatives depends on the value of the underlying securities, these can be powerful tools for hedging and speculation.
Option contracts, for example, are written on a variety of securities, such as common stock, stock indexes, foreign currency, agricultural commodities, precious metals, and interest rate futures. An investor may wish to purchase a call option, which allows the investor (option holder) to purchase the underlying security at a specified price (known as the exercise or strike price) during a fixed time period, if the investor believes the value of the underlying security will rise during that time period. For an American style option contract, if the price of the underlying stock rises above the strike price at any time during the fixed time period, the option holder may exercise his option to purchase the underlying common stock at the strike price and then immediately sell it at the market price. The option holder will only realize a profit if the difference between the market price and the strike price is greater than the original investment (premium) paid for the option contract. If the price of the underlying security does not rise above the strike price during the fixed time period, the option holder simply allows the option contract to expire, and his losses consist only of the premium paid for the option contract. A European option, in contrast, can only be exercised on the expiration date and would only be exercised if the stock is trading above the strike price on the expiration date.
An investor may also purchase a put option, which allows the option holder to sell the underlying security at a specified strike price during a fixed time period, if he believes that the value of the underlying security will drop during the fixed time period. For an American style option contract, if the price of the underlying security drops below the strike price at any time during the fixed time period, the option holder may exercise his option to sell the underlying security at the strike price. In order to exercise a put option, the option holder does not have to own the underlying security. Upon exercise, the investor's broker purchases the necessary shares/units of the underlying security at the market price and immediately delivers (or “puts” them) to an option writer for the strike price. The option holder will only realize a profit if the difference between the strike price and the market price of the underlying securities upon exercise is greater than the premium paid for the option. Again, if the price of the underlying security does not drop below the strike price during the fixed time period, the option holder can just allow the option contract to expire and lose no more than the premium paid for that option.
Conversely, the writers of call and put options generally sell these option contracts for a premium. They write options on the underlying securities for a variety of reasons. Security owners who feel bullish about their security may write a put option feeling that they can gain a premium of the option contract without risking much in return. Security owners may write a call option as a way of enforcing their sell disciplines. If an investor would sell their security if it reached a certain price in accordance with a disciplined investing strategy regardless of the surrounding circumstances, then such investors can write a call option to enforce that strategy and gain a premium in addition. Traditionally, equity options are created as contracts on 100 shares of the underlying stock. They are always created by purchasing an option, resulting in a long position, or writing an option, resulting in a short position. These are referred to as opening transactions. The option contracts are terminated by one of (a) letting the option expire, (b) exercising the contract, or (c) reversing the opening transaction in the market place. These are referred to as closing transactions.
The benefits associated with option contracts, which are only one form of derivative securities, are numerous. Investors can use them as hedging devices for minimizing risk. For example, an owner of a security may buy a put option on that security at a price that provides the investor with the comfort of knowing that he cannot lose more than a set amount of money for a specified time period. Investors can also enforce certain sell disciplines by writing call options as described above. Additionally, investors can speculate and leverage their stake in an underlying security through the purchase of call options in that underlying security as opposed to the purchase of the actual security. Combinations of the buying and selling of these simple option contracts provides a variety of products for the financial industry to offer its customers, appealing to the various investing strategies belonging to a wide range of customers.
The problem with the current treatment of option contracts is that upon the occurrence of a corporate event, such as a liquidating distribution, the holder of the derivative security must exercise any rights at that time or allow the security to expire. For example, assume that a corporate event has triggered liquidation of the common stock of a Company XYZ, with full distribution rights upon liquidation. Regardless of the price of the stock upon liquidation, the holder of a call option (the “holder”) must now decide whether to exercise his option to purchase the common stock at the strike price and sell at the liquidating price. Even if the holder makes a profit upon such an occurrence, the holder does not gain the true benefit of the bargain contemplated when he entered into the option contract. He loses the remaining time period in which the underlying common stock could have appreciated even further. The holder paid a premium to speculate on the underlying stock for a specified time period, and now that period is getting shortened without an adjustment for the loss of time, for which the holder has already paid. There is a need for a process that accounts for the value of time when the holder is forced to exercise his option contract before the specified time period has expired, or when any investor is forced to exercise a derivative security before the bargained for time period has come to an end.